Back on topic….
The bulldogs may look like a running team based on the box score stats, but when you hive off the cupcake games and really focus on AzSt, Tenn, Aggy and our common opponent in Florida, it tells a different story. Of those four games, they averaged 230 ypg passing and 122 ypg rushing. And those stats are against three average defenses and one bad, bad defense.
On defense, the dogs allowed some eye popping rushing yards to Aggy and AzSt. And gave up 213 rushing ypg on average in those four games.
Removing our cupcakes, and looking at only OhSt, OU, KY and of course Florida, our defense gave up an average of 223 and 105 ypg, respectively. We have had a much higher defensive beta to the standard deviation of course.
What’s most telling of this cherry-picking approach is the TO battle. Where the bulldogs have given up the ball twice as many times as we have (6-3), but have also forced two more than our defense has (8-6) in the same games.
TLDR:
The teams are actually well matched on defense, despite how elite we want to believe our defense is (and exactly the same results against Florida). And they aren’t really a running team. This will very likely come down to the TOs in the box score. And if any one (or more) of our RBs can find space (despite our OL), we can win this game running (pun intended).